Freaks
This is the controversial 1931 movie by Tod Browning, director of Bela Lagosi in the silent Dracula and Lon Chaney in any number of films. The controversy puzzles me a bit, but then I’m looking at it with 2006 sensibilities. The hubub seems to be about the use of actual circus sideshow freaks in the movie rather than fake freaks (a la Lon Chaney) and, I guess, people with disabilities shouldn’t be seen in public outside of a sideshow or something. The story, though, is quite good. Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a trapese artist, and her cohort Hercules (Henry Victor), the strong man, decided to take advantage of Hans (Harry Earles) who has a crush on Venus in order to get ahold of his inherited fortune. In a drunken wedding party, Cleo betrays herself, and the freaks exact revenge.
The cast includes the who’s who of 1920’s sideshow fame. I’ve even heard of a few of them from other shows. People like Josephene Joseph, the half-man, half woman; Schlize the pinhead; Johnny Eck the half-boy; and Daisy and Violet Hilton, the Siamese Twins. Harry Earles, of course, is known as a “Representative of the Lollipop Guild” in Wizard of Oz, and fifty years later, Angelo Rossitto would play the “Master” half of “Master-Blaster” in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
And while a couple of the characters (notably Harry’s sister, Daisy Earles) couldn’t act for beans, most are quite good, the story is very good and the film is worth seeing for many different reasons. The DVD includes a documentary that is 15 minutes longer than the movie itself, which, I suppose, says something. The film, apparently, had much trouble with the censors and was eventually “lost” only to surface again in the 1960s when it became a cult hit.
Would watch again
February 6th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
It’s LUgosi! LUgosi!
Bah… no one gives two fucks for Bela.
February 6th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
It’s probably also Béla.
My bad.
February 7th, 2006 at 2:28 am
Wasen’t Bela great in Plan 9 From Outer Space? Pity he died before they shot the movie.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:01 am
You know, I have a hard time watching that movie. It’s just so bad that it’s really tough. But Ed Wood, a sort of movie about the movie, was very good.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:48 am
!!!
Plan 9 rules. However, watching it alone is not recommended. It’s a group activity.
All of this Lugosi/Wood talk makes me want to see it again, but I only have a VHS copy and my VCR is buried somewhere in a crawlspace. Were I to dig it out, a Plan 9 / Crimson Ghost marathon would certainly ensue!
“I’m muzzled by army brass!”
August 1st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
[...] I rented Freaks from Netflix a couple of years ago and liked it. It showed up on archive.org today as a streamable movie. [...]